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The Patriots have agreed to trade Mankins, who has made six of the last seven Pro Bowls, to Tampa Bay for tight end Tim Wright and a draft pick, according to Fox Sports' Jay Glazer. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported it is a fourth-round pick. Usually when the Patriots move on from a player, there's a good reason. Mankins is 32 years old but still a solid player. He finished 18th among guards in Pro Football Focus' 2013 grades and is 10th in their preseason grades this year. He surely represents an enormous upgrade for the Buccaneers, whose offensive line play this preseason has been frightening, especially at guard.

So maybe this is more about Gronkowski than Mankins?

Wright is an intriguing, big and athletic tight end who converted to the position after playing receiver in college. He had 571 yards and five touchdowns last season. He will be insurance if Gronkowski, coming off an ACL surgery, is not quite himself early in the season. Gronkowski has yet to play in the preseason, but has been working in 11-on-11 drills and has remained confident that he'll play all 16 games this season. The move to trade a Pro Bowl guard to get Wright might mean the Patriots are worried about that.

Re: The WTF Trade

Originally Posted by wickedsolo

Pats have a slew of guys who are younger and can play guard.

They also got a 4th rounder from Tampa, which will likely be a pretty decent pick.

They don't need the cap space and Mankins has been one of the premier Guards in the NFL for the past decade. Wright the TE they traded for was publicly slammed by Lovie last week for dogging it in practice. It seems like a bizarre trade to me.

Re: The WTF Trade

Mankins is 32 years old. I think he has 2-3 very good years left. He might not be as good as he was 5 years ago, but he is still a very good OG IMO. I don't understand the trade from NE's perspective, since it looked like they were loading up to make a SB run.

“When the sea was calm, all ships alike showed mastership in floating.”- William Shakespeare

Re: The WTF Trade

Tom Brady only has a couple of years left. I checked out their depth chart and I don't see any obvious depth at Guard. I could understand if they really needed the cap space but this one just mystifies me. My brother the Patriots fan is completely freaking out. He's been telling me that Bill has been tinkering way too much in recent years which is why they can't get over the top.

Re: The WTF Trade

I think it was a good move. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mankins only had this year and next year left on his current contract and being 32 (33 next March) it makes sense to try and get something for him now.

Tampa is arguably one of the bottom 16 teams in the league, so it is possible that 4th round pick could end up being pretty high in the 4th round. They drafted Bryan Stork and they also have Marcus Cannon, whom they really like. Cannon can play G or RT and considering they have Vollmer out at RT, it makes sense to give Cannon a crack at LG.

Re: The WTF Trade

It would be the same as the ravens trading Ngata this season for a 4th round pick and an unknown 2nd year TE. I don't care how high in the 4th round that pick is it would still be crazy. The Pats are taking a $4 million cap hit this year and next year on top of it. If the Pats didn't have limited time to win because of Brady's age then I would understand but that's not the case. Brady must be freaking out over this

Re: The WTF Trade

Originally Posted by GOTA

It would be the same as the ravens trading Ngata this season for a 4th round pick and an unknown 2nd year TE. I don't care how high in the 4th round that pick is it would still be crazy. The Pats are taking a $4 million cap hit this year and next year on top of it. If the Pats didn't have limited time to win because of Brady's age then I would understand but that's not the case. Brady must be freaking out over this

I'm not sure why you'd compare this to the Ravens shipping Ngata off.

Ngata, even though he isn't as good of a player as he once was, is much more challenging to replace than Logan Mankins would be IMO.

Even with crappy OL play last year they were still right there in the thick of it come playoff time.

As long as the Patriots are in the AFC East, they can do what they want and still make the playoffs. I'm really hoping that the Dolphins or Jets come out and REALLY shock a lot of people.

Re: The WTF Trade

So I talked to a Patriot fan co-worker of mine. He was pretty happy with the trade. Said primary reason was the free up cap space to resign other players whose contracts are coming up in the next couple of years. Also that Mankins has not been as good as he was in the past. Still good in the run game but pretty poor in pass protection.